Jim Hightower:The Bushites Have Outsourced Our Government to Their Pals

[laststeamtrain]

The Bushites Have Outsourced Our Government to Their Pals
By Jim Hightower, Hightower Lowdown
Posted on June 20, 2007, Printed on June 20, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/54623/

The sprawling $43 billion homeland security department (HSD) is known chiefly for being the agency in charge of America's color-coded terrorist-threat alarm system ("Good morning, Americans. Today is Yellow. Be vigilant. Report all suspicious people.") It's boogeyman nonsense, of course, doing absolutely nothing to make our country safe. But such falderal helps those in charge obscure HSD's real mission: to serve as a giant federal cookie jar for corporate America. Go to HSD's website, and you'll find a prominent section called "Open For Business." There, on any given day, corporate shoppers can scroll through the hundreds of contracts and grants available to them. Just dip in and grab some cookies, each one worth from $50,000 to more than $80 million. Like the department's color codes, the vast majority of these projects do nothing to make our country safe. Instead, they are make-work studies, silly technologies, and useless systems that essentially serve as mediums for transferring billions of our tax dollars to a few corporate big shots. Ever helpful to its clients, HSD also maintains a private-sector office, headed by an assistant secretary who is not a security expert but a former banker from JP Morgan Chase. This office provides concierge service for cookie grabbers. For example, it recently held a corporate seminar, entitled "The Business of Homeland Security," offering "tips, hints, and directions" on how to grab the latest contracts and grants. Lest you think that patriotism or even national security might be the motivating force behind these government-industry confabs, a Sikorksy Helicopters executive who attended the session bluntly explained why he was there: "To us contractors, money is always a good thing."

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http://www.alternet.org/story/54623/

[napi21]

1. So how is Fred Thompson the stand in for Jim?

I realize this isn't quite the commentary you expected from your post, but Jim seems to be totally against this admin. Does that mean Fredie is too? Or does Fredie have a completely different position than Jim?

I've always enjoyed Jim's commentaries and have not heard any of Fred's stand in ones, but this makes me wonder.

[indepat]

2. 'puke/neocon criminality is ubiquitous knowing no bounds